Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there any SEO value of an HTML Sitemap, or is it strictly UI/UX?
-
We have an xml sitemap that generates daily, and our site and navigation is strong. Is there any added SEO value in either the links, or content of an html sitemap?
I only see answers from several years ago so not sure if things have changed that would increase or decrease the importance.
Thanks
-
I just want to chime in on the "most people don't bother to consult sitemaps - if they need to consult it to find their way on your site you probably have a UX problem" statement.
I agree, but a lot of sites DO have a UX problem, and for that reason I use HTML sitemaps. If you're in a hurry, and let's face it, everyone is, you can go directly to the HTML sitemap and search for whatever it is you're looking for. And yes, a lot of sites still DON'T have search either b/c they think their UX is fine and therefore don't need search. Can't tell you how many times I've had that conversation with site developers....
-
According to Google webmaster guidelines - a sitemap for users still has some value:
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the site map into multiple pages. (source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en)I agree with Patrick that now most people don't bother to consult sitemaps - if they need to consult it to find their way on your site you probably have a UX problem.
For SEO purposes - it still can have some advantages:- it can ensure that your site becomes flatter (content is less clicks away from the homepage)
- Google wants that "Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link." .A HTML sitemap can help with that as well - especially if you have a highly dynamic site where a lot of content is only accessible by (product) search
Sites like Linkedin.com still use these HTML indexes (although they are not called sitemaps but member lists) - as you can check when you visit the site in "Incognito" mode in your browser.
rgds,
Dirk
-
Hi there
From the user standpoint, it can help users understand the structure of your site more, if they click to it. From the SEO standpoint, it can help a bit with moving search and link equity through your site, but it's not a huge factor. Basically, if you have the XML setup and it's crawling fine, a HTML sitemap won't make a huge difference - Google and search engines want the XML sitemap. If you have a huge site, a HTML sitemap can be a big undertaking, but if you're site isn't that large, you have the bandwidth, and you want to create one, then feel free - it won't immensely help or hurt you.
I personally feel that XML sitemaps are more beneficial and are a better use of your time. As a user, I don't often use onsite sitemaps - I feel that if your navigation is set up properly, and you have an internal search, that you are doing the user enough justice to find your content in a quick and efficient matter that it eliminates the need. But again, it's totally upto you.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does an external link to an image file on my site help my SEO?
I found a few websites that are displaying images from my site. Curiously, they have also linked these images to the source image file on my website. I found these because Moz showed these sites in my list of backlinks. I assume that means it impacts my Domain Authority. But does this actually help me in search engines since it's not linking to a page on my site?
Link Building | | AlexLenhoff0 -
How relevant are citations to SEO?
'How much do citations help your seo in view of the direction that google seems to be headed where content is king? Should the citations not be relevant to your site?'.
Link Building | | arthureray0 -
Creating A Scholarship For SEO
My client is a Law Firm just outside of Tampa, and I am trying to get her keyword phrase: "Tampa Car Accident Attorney" in the top 3. One of the strategies I want to use is to create a scholarship for "Tampa Area Students and how a car accident impacted their life" or "Tampa Area Students and how they think they can decrease car accidents." (that's still be worked on). Once the scholarship is created, I want to put it on our Tampa Car Accident Attorney page, and get other companies to link to that page. My question is what links should we go after? Because that will tailor it to who we give the scholarship to. We could give it to a University of South Florida student, and get one .edu link. We could do the same thing for the University of Tampa, or Stetson Law School, but we'd only be getting one link from each of them. If we set it up for high schoolers, we can get more links from the community and schools, but I'm not sure high school .edu links matter all that much. Is 10 high school .edu links as important as 1 college .edu link? I don't know. If anyone has had an experience with this or any insights, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
Link Building | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?
If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history? We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady. Thanks so much, guys! Lily
Link Building | | wspwsp0 -
Web Designers and SEOs using backlinks from client sites
What are your thoughts on SEOs and web designers putting their own links in the footers of client sites. For the sake of argument, lets assume that the client is happy for the link to be there. I'm referring to the SEO merits of the link being there from an 'irrelevant' website. My belief is that this goes against what Google is looking for and that these are irrelevant links and likely to be picked up and penalised. That's what I believe! However, I see lots of sites offering SEO services that have dofollow links from their client sites, using exact match anchor text and they are all ranking highly. Is it just a matter of time before Google sniffs them out and penalises them for it? Or should I be going through my client sites and adding myself a dofollow link in the footer? (with their permission of course). The highest ranking sites in any UK city do this. If you search SEO Manchester, SEO Leeds etc and find the top ranking sites and check them out on opensite explorer, they are all using a disproportionate amount of dofollow backlinks form client sites.
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Does link from a blog in Blogger.com helps in SEO ?
Do you guys think that adding good quality blogs to blogger.com and then getting a link from those blogs will help ?
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Where/should I post my press release/articles on my own website?
I have started a long-term article marketing campaign and press release distribution. I will have about 4 articles and press releases in total every month. Although the press releases will not be self-promotional, sometimes they will be talking about a certain product that we unveil. The question is, due to the high quality of these press releases, should I put them on my website as well as publish them on third party websites? If so, because they target a specific service/product which we already have a dedicated page on our website, wouldn't that put Google in the position of choosing between the two pages? I was thinking to put them on my blog and link internally from there with the keywords that I target on those pages as anchor text. The same question for articles. Any suggestions?
Link Building | | echo10 -
Should I 301 Redirect The index.html Page?
Hello, As an experiment I am trying to work with an SBI site but am noticing index.html is being forced on me as the homepage. As I understand it's good practice to 301 redirect the index.html page to the to the actual home page. Can someone please confirm that I am right in thinking this? Here is an example: http://www.anguilla-beaches.com/index.html
Link Building | | umtmedia
http://www.anguilla-beaches.com/ According to yahoo 773 links are pointing to the index.html page and 771 links are pointing to the / page. I'm sure Google knows that these are the same pages and does not consider them as duplicate but surely the index.html page should be redirected right? am I going mad here? Now if we look at this site: http://www.jugglenow.com the homepage has 198 links according to yahoo
http://www.jugglenow.com/index.html this page also has 198 links? now I am confused, are these 2 the same page? On this page: http://www.jugglenow.com/juggling-balls.html notice how there is no link to the actual homepage but there is a link to the index.html page. Am I missing something here because I can't figure it out, surely there should be just 1 homepage without a index.html page. Any help would be appreciated0
